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Saturday, September 14, 2019

European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano took this image of the line that separates day from night, known as the terminator, during his Beyond mission. He captioned it: "To be able to observe with one’s own eyes the night coming in, that line between day and obscurity, is always an experience of surreal, inexplicable emotion."

Tropical Cyclone Nine became a tropical storm as it moved northwestward over the Southwest Atlantic Ocean, bringing strong winds and heavy rainfall to the central and northwest Bahamas, including areas recently devastated by Hurricane Dorian. Tropical storm Humberto will likely bring tropical-storm-force-winds and heavy rainfall to portions of the northwestern Bahamas today. Significant storm surge is not expected in the northwestern Bahamas from this system. The center of Humberto is now passing just east of Great Abaco Island.

The future track of this system is still uncertain, and forecasters will continue to monitor it closely.

This GeoColor-enhanced imagery was created by NOAA's partners at the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere. The GOES East geostationary satellite, also known as GOES-16, provides coverage of the Western Hemisphere, including the United States, the Atlantic Ocean and the eastern Pacific. The satellite's high-resolution imagery provides optimal viewing of severe weather events, including thunderstorms, tropical storms, and hurricanes.

Friday, September 13, 2019

An image of a sunset in East Timor captured by European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano during his Beyond mission to the International Space Station.

East Timor or Timor-Leste, officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is a country in Maritime Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the nearby islands of Atauro and Jaco, and Oecusse, an exclave on the northwestern side of the island surrounded by Indonesian West Timor. Australia is the country's southern neighbor, separated by the Timor Sea.

Hurricane Dorian skirted the coast of Kennedy Space Center on Sept. 3 and 4. A few days before, the Mobile Launcher, atop the crawler-transporter, was moved from Launch Pad 39B back to the Vehicle Assembly as a precaution. Kennedy Director Bob Cabana presented awards to NASA and contractor employees during the center's annual NASA KSC Honor Awards Ceremony on Sept. 10.

The European Space Agency's Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite takes us over the region of Baja California in northwest Mexico, in this week's edition of the Earth from Space program.

We are Europe's gateway to space. Our mission is to shape the development of Europe's space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.

The crew of Expedition 60, consisting of Commander Alexey Ovchinin of Roscosmos; NASA astronauts Christina Koch, Andrew Morgan and Nick Hague; ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Luca Parmitano; and cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov, took much-needed respite on Thursday during an off-duty day aboard the International Space Station. This Friday, investigations furthering scientific research in support of crew health and extended travels to destinations deeper in the solar system are resuming.

On Earth, the Expedition 61 prime crew of cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka and NASA astronaut Jessica Meir, along with spaceflight participant Hazzaa Ali Almansoori, are at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, finalizing pre-launch training and preparations for their launch on Sept. 25 aboard a Soyuz MS-15 spacecraft. On Wednesday, they ran through procedures and completed the necessary fit check, spacesuits donned, within the Soyuz vehicle. On Thursday, they took part in ceremonial activities, such as raising the flags of Russia, the United States, and the United Arab Emirates, along with backup crew members Tom Marshburn of NASA, Sergey Ryzhikov of Roscosmos and spaceflight participant Sultan Al-Neyadi of the United Arab Emirates.

Thursday, September 12, 2019

Sept. 12, 2019: This new Hubble Space Telescope view of Saturn, taken in late June 2019, reveals the giant planet's iconic rings. Saturn’s amber colors come from summer smog-like hazes, produced in photochemical reactions driven by solar ultraviolet radiation. Below the haze lie clouds of ammonia ice crystals, as well as deeper, unseen lower-level clouds of ammonium hydrosulfide and water.

The planet’s banded structure is caused by winds and clouds at different altitudes. Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 observed Saturn on June 20, 2019, as the planet made its closest approach to Earth, at about 845 million miles away.

Sept. 12, 2019: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 observed Saturn on June 20, 2019 as the planet made its closest approach to Earth this year, at approximately 1.36 billion kilometers away.

Since the Hubble Space Telescope was launched, its goal has been to study not only distant astronomical objects, but also the planets within our Solar System. Hubble’s high-resolution images of our planetary neighbors can only be surpassed by pictures taken from spacecraft that actually visit these bodies. However, Hubble has one advantage over space probes; it can look at these objects periodically and observe them over much longer periods than any passing probe could.Saturn hosts many recognizable features, most notably its trademark ring system, which is now tilted towards Earth. This gives us a magnificent view of its bright icy structure. Hubble resolves numerous ringlets and the fainter inner rings. Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens first identified the rings in 1655 and thought they were a continuous disk encircling the planet, but we now know them to be composed of orbiting particles of ice and dust. Though all of the gas giants boast rings, Saturn’s are the largest and most spectacular.

The age of Saturn’s ring system continues to be debated. And, even more perplexingly, it is unknown what cosmic event formed the rings. There is no consensus among planetary astronomers today.Another intriguing feature is the long-lasting hexagon-shaped structure circling the planet’s north pole. It is a mysterious six-sided pattern caused by a high-speed jetstream. The hexagon is so large that four Earths could fit inside its boundaries (there is no similar structure at Saturn’s south pole).Other features, however, are not as long-lasting. A large storm in the north polar region spotted by Hubble last year has disappeared. Smaller, convective storms, such as the one just above the center of the planet’s image, also come and go.

Saturn’s amber colors come from summer smog-like hazes, produced in photochemical reactions driven by solar ultraviolet radiation. Below the haze lie clouds of ammonia ice crystals, as well as deeper, unseen lower-level clouds of ammonium hydrosulphide and water. The planet’s banded structure is caused by the winds and clouds at different altitudes.

Saturn’s appearance changes with its seasons, caused by the planet’s 27-degree axial tilt. This image was taken during summer in the planet’s northern hemisphere.

This image is the second in a yearly series of snapshots taken as part of the Outer Planets Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) project. OPAL is helping scientists to understand the atmospheric dynamics and evolution of our Solar System’s gas giant planets. In Saturn’s case, astronomers will be able to track shifting weather patterns and other changes to identify trends.The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.

Sept. 11, 2019: This Hubblecast Light video highlights the exciting discovery of the first water detected on a potentially habitable planet. With data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, water vapor has been detected in the atmosphere of a super-Earth with habitable temperatures by University College Longon (UCL) researchers.

With data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, water vapor has been detected in the atmosphere of a super-Earth within the habitable zone by University College London (UCL) researchers in a world first. K2-18b, which is eight times the mass of Earth, is now the only planet orbiting a star outside the Solar System, or exoplanet, known to have both water and temperatures that could support life.

The discovery, published today in Nature Astronomy, is the first successful atmospheric detection of an exoplanet orbiting in its star’s habitable zone, at a distance where water can exist in liquid form.

Image: This artist’s impression shows the planet K2-18b, its host star and an accompanying planet in this system. K2-18b is now the only super-Earth exoplanet known to host both water and temperatures that could support life.

First author, Dr Angelos Tsiaras (UCL Centre for Space Exochemistry Data,CSED), said: “Finding water on a potentially habitable world other than Earth is incredibly exciting. K2-18b is not ‘Earth 2.0’ as it is significantly heavier and has a different atmospheric composition. However, it brings us closer to answering the fundamental question: Is the Earth unique?”

The team used archive data from 2016 and 2017 captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and developed open-source algorithms to analyse the starlight filtered through K2-18b’s atmosphere [1]. The results revealed the molecular signature of water vapor, also indicating the presence of hydrogen and helium in the planet’s atmosphere.

The authors believe that other molecules, including nitrogen and methane, may be present but they remain undetectable with current observations. Further studies are required to estimate cloud coverage and the percentage of atmospheric water present.

The planet orbits the cool dwarf star K2-18, which is 110 light years from Earth in the constellation of Leo. Given the high level of activity of its red dwarf star, K2-18b may be more hostile than Earth and is likely to be exposed to more radiation.

K2-18b was discovered in 2015 and is one of hundreds of super-Earths—planets with masses between those of Earth and Neptune—found by NASA’s Kepler spacecraft. NASA’s TESS mission is expected to detect hundreds more super-Earths in the coming years.

Co-author Dr Ingo Waldmann (UCL CSED), said: “With so many new super-Earths expected to be found over the next couple of decades, it is likely that this is the first discovery of many potentially habitable planets. This is not only because super-Earths like K2-18b are the most common planets in our Milky Way, but also because red dwarfs—stars smaller than our Sun—are the most common stars.”

The next generation of space telescopes, including the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope and ESA’s ARIEL mission, will be able to characterize atmospheres in more detail as they will carry more advanced instruments. ARIEL is expected to launch in 2028 and will observe 1,000 planets in detail to get a truly representative picture of what they are like.

Professor Giovanna Tinetti (UCL CSED), co-author and Principal Investigator for ARIEL, said: “Our discovery makes K2-18b one of the most interesting targets for future study. Over 4000 exoplanets have been detected but we don’t know much about their composition and nature. By observing a large sample of planets, we hope to reveal secrets about their chemistry, formation and evolution.”

“This study contributes to our understanding of habitable worlds beyond our Solar System and marks a new era in exoplanet research, crucial to ultimately placing the Earth, our only home, into the greater picture of the Cosmos,” said Dr Tsiaras.

Notes[1] The observations were achieved from 9 transits of K2-18b with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), as part of the HST proposals 13665 and 14682 (PI: Björn Benneke).

More informationThe Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.

Tuesday, September 10, 2019

The Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite takes us over a set of small towns, located around 20 km southeast of Rome, Italy and known collectively as Castelli Romani, in this week's edition of the Earth from Space program.

This image, taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, focuses on an object named UGC 695, which is located 30 million light-years away within the constellation Cetus (The Sea Monster), also known as The Whale.

UGC 695 is a low-surface-brightness (LSB) galaxy. These galaxies are so faint that their brightness is less than the background brightness of Earth’s atmosphere, which makes them tricky to observe. This low brightness is the result of the relatively small number of stars within them — most of the baryonic matter in these galaxies exists in the form of huge clouds of gas and dust. The stars are also distributed over a relatively large area.

LSB galaxies, like dwarf galaxies, have a high fraction of dark matter relative to the number of stars they contain. Astronomers still debate about how LSB galaxies formed in the first place.